Tag: X-factor

The X-Factor in User Experience (UX) – New York UX Writer Sprinkles the Fun Flakes in the Fishbowl

This app design is pretty clear, telling the user the valid types of ID and calling for an action (to select). But it would be more clear to say “tap” than “select” since this is a phone app.

When I began looking at my writing experience from a UX perspective for a potential contract at Google, I realized that user experience permeates everything I do. It is the foundation of technical writing.

Technical writers are always asking questions about the user experience:

  • What does the user need to know?
  • What is the best way to provide the information?
  • What level of reading skills do they have?
  • What is their pre-existing experience with the subject matter?
  • How can we best accommodate different skill and experience levels?
  • How do I seamlessly provide the required info, making it findable and making sure it answers all their questions?
What is wrong with this design? What if you want to pay your Macy’s credit card statement. Would you choose “Pay Another Entity,” “Pay a Bill,” or “Pay a Business or Person”? Confusing! Frustrating! The user will likely have to try a few options before they can succeed at their desired task.

The X-factor in user experience design is one more question:

  • How do we make sure the user’s experience is positive and even  delightful?

In my opinion, the technical writer is always the user’s advocate. We have the logical mind to think through every step the user needs to do to perform a task, and on any well-functioning software, app, or web design team, the technical writer is part of the initial design process, collaborating with other experts to find the best way to help the user succeed.

Sprinkling the Fun Flakes

If empathy, logic, and flow are missing, the user is not going to have a good experience, period. If the user can’t figure out what to do, if the app leads to a dead end, if there are no clear indicators of how to find an expected function—the user will feel frustrated and won’t have a positive experience. If the wording is unclear—or worse, badly written or offensive, as in the case of the website of one “UX design expert” I recently viewed—your product is dead in the water.

So cute words, fun graphics, and pleasing haptics are useless unless there is a solid design foundation and clean, clear language.

Technical writers have been helping provide that solid foundation for decades: creating task-focused text that is clear, concise, and useful.

We are the ideal professionals to add the X-factor and sprinkle the fun flakes into the fishbowl:

  • Compelling, effective language, backed by user research.
  • Great copy and tone of voice, conveying the brand and connecting personally to the user.
  • Rewards for accomplishing the tasks. We all like a treat!

Nuff said.